Sensitization of sensory neurons after noxious conditioning may be involved in many chronic pain states, including radiating low back pain and sciatica following disc herniation. Here, we examine such sensitization induced ...

Cyanobacteria from genera Anabaena, Microcystis and Planktothrix produce a wide selection of nonribosomal peptides, e.g. microcystins and cyanopeptolins. Nonribosomal peptides are produced by peptide synthetases or polyketide ...

Osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) is a tightly regulated process, inducing large changes in cell phenotype and gene expression. Characterization of these expressional changes may be important in ...

Previous studies indicate that central sensitization may be an underlying mechanism of hyperalgesia and development of persistent pain. However, some individuals may have a higher risk of long lasting pain than others, ...

Background
Efficient expression systems exist for antibody (Ab) molecules, which allow for characterization of large numbers of individual Ab variants. In contrast, such expression systems have been lacking ...

Molecular evolution is a key strategy in the development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics. Libraries of mutant variants are generated and those with desired properties selected after screening. However, large scale ...

Adult skeletal muscle fibers show an ability to undergo phenotypic alterations without cell death or regeneration in response to environmental changes. Important factors affecting the metabolic and contractile properties ...

Photochemical internalisation (PCI) is a method for efficient delivery of macromolecules, like genes used in gene therapy, to the cytosol of cells. Most macromolecules enter a cell by endocytosis and are trapped in the ...

In contrast to the mammalian major histocompatibility complex (MHC), where the MHC class I and class II loci reside in close vicinity to one another, the bony fishes have unlinked MHC class I and class II. Previous studies ...

The protein toxin ricin is found in the plant Ricinus communis, and is a useful tool in studies of intracellular traffic. It consists of an enzymatically active A chain and a B chain with lectin properties, joined together ...

Background
FLASH is a huge nuclear protein involved in various cellular functions such as apoptosis signalling, NF-κB activation, S-phase regulation, processing of histone pre-mRNAs, and co-regulation of ...

ABSTRACT: A reporter gene was constructed consisting of the 5´ region of the C. reinhardtii rbcL gene from position –70 to +47, relative to the transcription start point, fused to the E. coli uidA(GUS) structural gene ...

The success of Fc-fusion bio-therapeutics has spurred the development of other Fc-fusion products for treating and/or vaccinating against a range of diseases. We describe a method to modulate their function by converting ...

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease driven by an immune response to gluten peptides. The disease is strongly associated with the MHC class II molecule HLA-DQ2.5. The similar molecule HLA-DQ2.2 is not associated with ...